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Making higher education industry relevant Campus
Notes
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Making higher education industry relevant
THERE is a growing need in India for skilled manpower to narrow the gap between demand and supply of skills. The Centre has set a target of 500 million skilled workers by the year 2022. Consequently, there has been tremendous pressure on increasing the capacity and capability of institutions engaged in running skill development programmes. Simultaneously, a need has been felt to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for higher education in the country. About five years ago, GER in India was around 13 per cent and the authorities claim that it has now risen to 18 per cent. The target is to achieve a GER of 30 per cent by the year 2020. Given the Indian obsession with degrees, higher education and skill development cannot be totally separated and these have to move hand in hand to meet the growing demand of the industry. To make higher education industry relevant, students need to be provided avenues and options to switch from skill development programmes to higher education and vice versa. And only a select few, those possessing an aptitude for research, should branch out towards research activities. It implies that the higher education sector has to chart out a course that provides multiple options to students at different stages. India inherited its higher education system from the colonial era that had altogether a different objective. Policy debates were initiated after Independence to change the paradigm but the industry dominated by the “Licence Raj” was unable to force the hand of the bureaucracy in the education sector. At that time, the sector was limited by its size and it would not have been that difficult to bring about a change. But the industry was content with the type of students graduating from universities and our bureaucracy did not show the needed foresight. However, the liberalisation of economy in the 1990s changed the needs of the industry that started demanding problem solvers and knowledge creators. Our universities were not prepared to meet that challenge. The problem got compounded with a large number of young aspirants who wanted to pursue higher education. The preference of parents for white-collar jobs put further strain on the higher education sector. Both the Central and state governments were unable to meet the demand and, thus, private players made an entry into the higher education sector. Today almost 90 per cent of management education, 80 per cent of engineering and 68 per cent of medical institutions are in the private sector. Its size can be gauged from the fact that the number of universities in India has risen from 17 at the time of Independence to around 670 till date. Similarly, the number of colleges has grown from 496 in 1947 to more than 40,000 now. This exponential expansion coupled with a slow pace of reforms has raised concerns about unemployable degree holders being produced by higher educational institutions. Interestingly, the worst form of sledging has been inflicted on private universities. But in the present vitiated environment, we have to ask if the private universities have really been as awful as these are made out to be? Ironically, a distinct pattern is emerging in the debate relating to higher education in the country, where the private sector is being painted as the main villain. We need to pause and think if that is indeed the case. The matter is serious both for the private sector in particular and the higher education sector as a whole. If the private sector, with such a large presence, cannot be trusted, the fallout might hurt it but it will not spare the public sector either. A scorched-earth policy invariably engulfs all! The debate and the consequential efforts need to be geared towards enhancing the quality of higher education both in public and private universities and other higher educational institutions. For higher education to improve the measures adopted should include both the ground realities and the enlightened view of education. It is futile to accuse educational institutions merely based on their origin. All the stakeholders carry different perceptions of the two sectors based on their experiences, ethos, expectations and social milieu. A debate throws up differences but it also opens the doors for opportunities to harmonise and iron out the differences. It does not entitle the opponents to paint all private universities and institutions with the same brush. The mere fact that industry has not subscribed to that trend and has been recruiting students from private institutions in large numbers reinforces that argument. On the other hand, the general public, including bureaucrats and politicians who are more than keen to get their wards educated in private schools, change tack when it comes to higher education and prefer government-run institutions. This should make the private sector sit up and introspect. There is a need to institute measures to change this social perception. And that can come about only with an honest approach. That brings us to the twin issues of autonomy and accountability. Granting autonomy to higher educational institutions is a must to enable them to acquire their own ethos, character and operational freedom. Is our assumption that autonomy begets honesty really tenable? Perhaps the reverse is true, and we could say that honesty strengthens the claims to autonomy. Dishonest autonomy can cause great harm to the higher education sector and, consequently, to the future generations and national strength. Therefore, there is a need for checks and balances to ensure ‘chaotic autonomy’ does not take the centre stage merely to satisfy the rhetoric. No doubt the autonomy goes hand in hand with accountability, but any questioning of accountability has to be tempered with in consonance with prevailing environment. Applying rules and laws blindly could be counterproductive. The rule of law must prevail impartially and realistically, irrespective of the origin of the institution, and not submit to the ideologies or biases of certain people. In a socialistic environment it is difficult to follow this dictum but we must remember that hard cases make bad law, and bad law extolled as guardian of public good can spell disaster. We cannot afford to try and create a world that has oracles of virtue and whose word means immediate execution with extreme prejudice. The country needs honest people to run its higher education sector. Different stakeholders need to temper their self-interests to ensure common good. India needs a renaissance of mutual trust that is supported by self-regulation. Disagreeing with someone can throw up better solutions, but disagreement based on mistrust sows the seeds of conflict. The Indian higher education sector would do well to keep that in mind and remove the ‘caste system’ of public versus private that has been created. The writer is a former Vice-Chancellor, Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh
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Campus
Notes
Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak MAHARSHI Dayanand University (MDU) has decided to grant a ‘special chance’ to B.Tech/B.Engg. students to clear their odd semester reappear papers. MDU Vice-Chancellor H.S. Chahal has given this special chance on the request of students. MDU Controller of Examinations Dr B.S. Sindhu informed that all such students of B.Tech./B.Engg., who have passed or who are appearing in the eighth semester examination, may take their first, third and fifth semester re-appear examination, if eligible for the same. A fee of Rs 7,000 per semester will be charged for this special-chance examination. All interested students may fill in their examination forms online through their respective college/institution up to June 19. No examination form will be accepted after the deadline, Dr Sindhu added.
Seminar on higher
education
The challenges of higher education in India are manifold. The teaching community must gear up to face the challenges with an innovative approach. This viewpoint emerged at a state-level seminar on “Challenges of Higher Education” organised by the Haryana Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisation (HFUCTO) and MDU Teachers’ Association on the university campus recently. MDU Vice-Chancellor H.S. Chahal while inaugurating the seminar said the status of teachers in society is respectable. Teachers must contribute towards developing values and morality in students, he said. The Vice-Chancellor said to make the students attracted towards higher education, teachers must take innovative measures in teaching to make it more interesting. He also dwelled on the research and innovation part in higher education. Delivering the keynote address, noted scholar Professor Sudhanshu Bhushan of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, said the state is reducing its role in the field of higher education which is slowly being passed on to the private sector. He said as a result of privatisation, market forces are setting the agenda for higher education. Professor Bhushan said the recent decision of the introduction of a Four-Year-Undergraduate Programme in university of Delhi is one such step of hasty structural change without proper academic discussions. He gave clarion call for making higher education a platform for the development of intellectual capacity of students and expanding their academic horizons, rather than making them intellectual worker for the Western world.
Fight against social evils
The university will initiate field research on contemporary socio-economic issues and create social awareness in the state against social evils and inequalities. The newly established Ch. Ranbir Singh Institute of Social and Economic Change will take this initiative identifying socio-economic issues by conducting research at the grassroots level, organising seminars and workshops and publishing awareness material on socio-economic issues. This was decided at a meeting of the Governing Body of the institute held recently under the chairmanship of Vice-Chancellor H.S. Chahal. The Vice-Chancellor said steps would be taken to develop Ch. Ranbir Singh Institute of Social and Economic Change as a torch-bearer institute on socio-economic-development studies. He called for quality research aimed at social and community causes. Noted economist Professor Monir Alam, Head, Population Research Centre, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, said demographic indicators vis-à-vis socio-economic issues needed to be researched at the village level. — Contributed by Bijendra Ahlawat |
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IGNOU introduces pre-admission counselling
NEW DELHI: Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has introduced the first pre-admission counselling for academic programmes beginning this academic session, an official said. “This is for the first time IGNOU is conducting pre-admission counselling for various academic programmes, ranging from Master’s degree, Bachelor’s degree, post-graduate diplomas, diplomas and certificates at IGNOU headquarters," said a statement from IGNOU. The counselling is being organised in Block-7, Conference Room of IGNOU headquarters at Maidan Garhi in South Delhi from 10.30 am to 5.00 pm on working days. “The Student Registration Division has opened pre-admission counselling for prospective students seeking admission to various programmes,” added the statement. The pre-admission counselling will be held till the last date of admission July 31. IGNOU is the world’s largest open university system with flexible entry qualifications and a wide range of academic programmes at affordable costs. — IANS
Literacy can improve public health in India: Researchers
WASHINGTON: Researchers have claimed that literacy has a greater impact on public health in India than income. The researchers from Cambridge’s Department of Sociology, accepted that it is mostly true that ‘wealthier is healthier’ across the roughly 500 districts in India’s ‘major states’, accounting for 95 per cent of the total population, but found that poverty and, more crucially, illiteracy are much stronger indicators of poor public health than low average income. Researchers said a poor district can nonetheless enjoy relatively good public health if it has a high literacy rate. Literacy acts as a base, enabling populations to understand medicine labelling, access healthcare, and engage with public health programmes. Using data on income, education, and under-five and infant mortality, the researchers suggested that policymakers concerned with public health should focus on literacy levels rather than average income. Models estimate that for the ‘typical’ Indian district in the early 2000s, the poverty gap would have had to be reduced by 25 per cent to save one child per thousand live births, whereas a mere 4 per cent increase in literacy rate would have had the same effect. — ANI |
